The invention relates to a cooling apparatus or arrangement, particularly for a no-frost refrigerator utilizing air recirculation.
It is already known to provide a refrigerator with a heat-insulating housing, and with two compartments at different temperatures, such as for example, a food-storage compartment and a freezer compartment. It is also known to equip the freezer compartment with an evaporator and air guiding means for circulating the air through the evaporator and into the compartments of the refrigerator. The evaporator in fact may form one wall of the freezer compartment. Means such as canals, channels, passageways or the like may be provided to circulate the air from one compartment to another to effect the mixing of the air from the compartment with the relatively higher operating temperature with the air from the colder compartment.
With the arrangements as found in the presently known refrigerators, the relatively warm and moist air from the compartment with the higher operating temperature is passed directly through a communication channel to the compartment with the lower operating temperature and mixed with the considerably colder air. The result of the mixing in the chamber with the lower temprature is the condensation of the moisture in the air to form a fog or mist. As a result, frost or ice may form, interfering with the operation of the refrigertor. Under unfavorable circumstances, such great quantities of snow or frost could form in the compartment with the lower temperature that it would cover the goods placed in the freezer compartment. Furthermore, the misty air is blown over the ventilator and through various channels or passages, where frost may form, thereby hindering the air current flow or shutting it off entirely. With an extremely high moisture content in the compartment with the higher operting temperture, the formation of frost and snow could be so intense that the operation of the refrigerator may no longer be possible after a short operating time.